Web Sites for General Encyclopedias
Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition (Bartleby.com)
Contains nearly 51,000 entries including 17,000 biographies, with hypertext cross-references and links to other sources.
Encyclopedia.com
Provides more than 14,000 articles from The Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Third Edition. A good place for quick factual information.
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Offers articles that are searchable by era or keyword. Also provides the full-text of some classic works.
Wikipedia
"The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." For comprehensive coverage on subjects broad, narrow, and everywhere in between, Wikipedia is hard to beat. However, since anyone can go in and change facts on the entries, it's a good idea to get a more reliable confirmation of the information from another source if you want to be sure you're using accurate information!